Zimbabwe civil servants to receive staggered pay rise

Leonard Ncube

Zimbabwe’s civil servants will start receiving salary adjustments next month, after the Apex council and Government finally signed a salary deal that will see the pay rise staggered over a period of four months.

Negotiators spent Tuesday night in Victoria Falls haggling over a pay rise, but finally struck a deal in the early hours of today after the Apex council agreed to the Government offer.

The negotiations have been taking place on the sidelines of the National Joint Negotiating Forum workshop which is underway in the resort town.

Government agreed to increase salaries by more than 100 percent backdated to January but paid over four months, an arrangement which workers had refused to accept insisting on a once-off payment.

Apex council president Cecilia Alexander said after agreeing to a compromise, workers representatives finally signed the agreement in the interest of bailing out civil servants who are in a desperate situation.

“Details of the signed deal will be released before end of day today,“ Alexander said.